A good friend of mine downstaterecently invited me to come down and bowhunt on his9000 acre private ranch in South Texas. I was allowed to shoot doe or a mature 8 point (a cull buck- their term), but nothing over 8 points.
They consider a mature deer 4 1/2 or older. Their thought is that if a 4 1/2 yo is no more than a 8 point by that time, he probably never will be anymore. I am not saying they are right or wrong, just sharing with you their protocol and reasoning.
It is a low fence operation. They feed protein during the spring and summer but not during the season.
They target 150"+ deer that are estimated to be at least 4 1/2 and are 9 points or more. They will kill between 8-12 of these size deer each year along with the cull bucks already described and lots of doe.
I had all of these three bucks within bow range hunting from a ground blind. These deer would have beenvery easy to take assuming one can half way shoot.Very different than the "spooky" bucks that I hunt at home which are only "moderately" pressured as compared to you guys that hunt public land.
While these deer do not fit their definition of a "cull", neither do they represent the "top end" of the bucks this ranch produces so maybe these are not true "representatives" of mature deer in their area. But having said that, I will maintain that they did not even act likea 2 1/2 yo back home as far as awareness and caution is concerned.
Thoughts?
